The Deeper Threat to Black America

Cornel West, director of Princeton University's Afro-American
Studies program and a professor of religion, has been described by The
New York Times as "a young, hip black man in an old white academy; a
believing Christian in a secular society; a progressive socialist in an
age of triumphant capitalism ...'' He displays his multifaceted
intellect in a volume of essays on race to be published this month,
Race Matters.

In the excerpt below, Mr. West speaks of "the nihilism that
increasingly pervades black communities'' and defines that nihilism not
in philosophic terms, but as "far more, the lived experience of coping
with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most
important) lovelessness.''

Recent discussions about the plight of African Americans--specifially
those at the bottom of the social ladder--tend to divide into two
camps. On the one hand, there are those who highlight the structural
constraints on the life chances of black people. Their viewpoint
involves a subtle historical and sociological analysis of slavery, Jim
Crowism, job and residential discrimination, skewed unemployment rates,
inadequate health care, and poor education. On the other hand, there
are those who stress the behavioral impediments on black upward
mobility. They focus on the waning of the Protestant ethic--hard work,
deferred gratification, frugality, and responsibility--in much of black
America.

Those in the first camp--the liberal structuralists--call for full
employment, health, education, and child-care programs, and broad
affirmative-action practices. In short, a new, more sober version of
the best of the New Deal and the Great Society: more government money,
better bureaucrats, and an active citizenry. Those in the second
camp--the conservative behaviorists--promote self-help programs, black
business expansion, and non-preferential job practices. They support
vigorous "free market'' strategies that depend on fundamental changes
in how black people act and live. To put it bluntly, their projects
rest largely upon a cultural revival of the Protestant ethic in black
America.

Unfortunately, these two camps have nearly suffocated the crucial
debate that should be taking place about the prospects for black
America. This debate must go far beyond the liberal and conservative
positions in three fundamental ways. First, we must acknowledge that
structures and behavior are inseparable, that institutions and values
go hand in hand. How people act and live are shaped--though in no way
dictated or determined--by the larger circumstances in which they find
themselves. These circumstances can be changed, their limits
attenuated, by positive actions to elevate living conditions.

Second, we should reject the idea that structures are primarily
economic and political creatures--an idea that sees culture as an
ephemeral set of behavioral attitudes and values. Culture is as much a
structure as the economy or politics; it is rooted in institutions such
as families, schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, and communication
industries (television, radio, video, music). Similarly, the economy
and politics are not only influenced by values but also promote
particular cultural ideals of the good life and good society.

Third, and most important, we must delve into the depths where
neither liberals nor conservatives dare to tread, namely, into the
murky waters of despair and dread that now flood the streets of black
America. To talk about the depressing statistics of unemployment,
infant mortality, incarceration, teenage pregnancy, and violent crime
is one thing. But to face up to the monumental eclipse of hope, the
unprecedented collapse of meaning, the incredible disregard for human
(especially black) life and property in much of black America is
something else.

The liberal/conservative discussion conceals the most basic issue
now facing black America: the nihilistic threat to its very existence.
This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and
political powerlessness--though economic well-being and political clout
are requisites for meaningful black progress. It is primarily a
question of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression,
personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in black
America.

The liberal structuralists fail to grapple with this threat for two
reasons. First, their focus on structural constraints relates almost
exclusively to the economy and politics. They show no understanding of
the structural character of culture. Why? Because they tend to view
people in egoistic and rationalist terms according to which they are
motivated primarily by self-interest and self-preservation. Needless to
say, this is partly true about most of us. Yet, people, especially
degraded and oppressed people, are also hungry for identity, meaning,
and self-worth.

The second reason liberal structuralists overlook the nihilistic
threat is a sheer failure of nerve. They hesitate to talk honestly
about culture, the realm of meanings and values, because doing so seems
to lend itself too readily to conservative conclusions in the narrow
way Americans discuss race. If there is a hidden taboo among liberals,
it is to resist talking too much about values because such discussions
remove the focus from structures and especially because they obscure
the positive role of government. But this failure by liberals leaves
the existential and psychological realities of black people in the
lurch. In this way, liberal structuralists neglect the battered
identities rampant in black America.

As for the conservative behaviorists, they not only misconstrue the
nihilistic threat but inadvertently contribute to it. This is a serious
charge, and it rests upon several claims. Conservative behaviorists
talk about values and attitudes as if political and economic structures
hardly exist. They rarely, if ever, examine the innumerable cases in
which black people do act on the Protestant ethic and still remain at
the bottom of the social ladder. Instead, they highlight the few
instances in which blacks ascend to the top, as if such success is
available to all blacks, regardless of circumstances. Such a vulgar
rendition of Horatio Alger in blackface may serve as a source of
inspiration to some--a kind of model for those already on the right
track. But it cannot serve as a substitute for serious historical and
social analysis of the predicaments of and prospects for all black
people, especially the grossly disadvantaged ones.

Conservative behaviorists also discuss black culture as if
acknowledging one's obvious victimization by white supremacist
practices (compounded by sexism and class condition) is taboo. They
tell black people to see themselves as agents, not victims. And on the
surface, this is comforting advice, a nice clichÀe for
downtrodden people. But inspirational slogans cannot substitute for
substantive historical and social analysis. While black people have
never been simply victims, wallowing in self-pity and begging for white
giveaways, they have been--and are--victimized. Therefore, to call on
black people to be agents makes sense only if we also examine the
dynamics of this victimization against which their agency will, in
part, be exercised. What is particularly naÃive and peculiarly
vicious about the conservative behavioral outlook is that it tends to
deny the lingering effect of black history--a history inseparable from
though not reducible to victimization. In this way, crucial and
indispensable themes of self-help and personal responsibility are
wrenched out of historical context and contemporary circumstances--as
if it is all a matter of personal will.

This ahistorical perspective contributes to the nihilistic threat
within black America in that it can be used to justify right-wing
cutbacks for poor people struggling for decent housing, child care,
health care, and education. As I [have] pointed out, the liberal
perspective is deficient in important ways, but even so liberals are
right on target in their critique of conservative government cutbacks
for services to the poor. These ghastly cutbacks are one cause of the
nihilist threat to black America. ...

Nihilism is not new in black America. The first African encounter
with the New World was an encounter with a distinctive form of the
Absurd. The initial black struggle against degradation and devaluation
in the enslaved circumstances of the New World was, in part, a struggle
against nihilism. In fact, the major enemy of black survival in America
has been and is neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the
nihilistic threat--that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as
long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of
overcoming oppression stays alive. The self-fulfilling prophecy of the
nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no future, that
without meaning there can be no struggle.

The genius of our black foremothers and forefathers was to create
powerful buffers to ward off the nihilistic threat, to equip black folk
with cultural armor to beat back the demons of hopelessness,
meaninglessness, and lovelessness. These buffers consisted of cultural
structures of meaning and feeling that created and sustained
communities; this armor constituted ways of life and struggle that
embodied values of service and sacrifice, love and care, discipline and
excellence. In other words, traditions for black surviving and thriving
under usually adverse New World conditions were major barriers against
the nihilistic threat. These traditions consist primarily of black
religious and civic institutions that sustained familial and communal
networks of support.

If cultures are, in part, what human beings create (out of
antecedent fragments of other cultures) in order to convince themselves
not to commit suicide, then black foremothers and forefathers are to be
applauded. In fact, until the early 70's black Americans had the lowest
suicide rate in the United States. But now young black people lead the
nation in suicides.

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